Policy Plan 2024

 

Policy Plan 2024
Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok

Board: Mw. J. du Bois-Minholts, president

Mw. L.M. Kuijer, secretary

Mw. R. van der Kroef, treasurer

Website: http://ileavache.blogspot.com/

Email address: reinhildevdk@gmail.com

Bank : NL06TRIO 0391025457

Address: Jensemaheerd 147, 9736CK Groningen, The Netherlands

Postal address : Postbus 1485, 9701 BL Groningen, The Netherlands

Telephone: + 31 654786602

RSIN: 8555.41.143

The project in numbers

 

Tested in 2015	98
Qualified in group A	20
Group A (adjusted¹) by 2021	18
Admitted 2015/2016	6
Admitted 2016/2017	3
Admitted 2017/2018	4
Admitted 2018/2019	3
Admitted 2019/2020	2
Total admitted by December 2020	18
Still awaiting admittance group A	0
Graduates 2016	3
Graduates 2017	4
Graduates 2018	3
Graduated 2019	3
Graduated 2020	1
Graduated 2021	2
Graduated 2022	1
Total graduates by 2022	17
Expected graduate by 2024	1
Total to be graduated by 2024	18
Group B 2015 (not all qualified)	44
Group B adjusted by final 2018	29¹

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ¹ Due to migration, death, illness, not yet finished secondary school, study does not fit in our goals.

Who, what, where, how?

• .        The general goal of our Foundation is to fund as of 2015 during 5 years, the vocational schooling of maximum 10 students per year. We decided to keep up our program in the year 2024 for the last student that is still in. This concerns – due to delays because of the pandemic, riots and the earthquake – still 1 student. While the central government in Port au Prince is misfunctioning/closed down, due to the anarchy in Port au Prince, graduation is not possible. We have to wait until things in Port au Prince are going to function again.
• Funding of our project is mainly found in our personal social network. But after 9 years, in which many of our sponsors have been contributing loyally, and the fact that we are now fading out with the educational project, some important sponsors have decided to stop. There is still enough money left for the last student to graduate. After this we have to see how our startup- branch develops. When necessary, we might try to find specific funds for a clearly circumscribed and one-time project. 
• We discovered that in spite of the good diploma’s they acquired, our students do not find regular jobs, and for that reason we extended our goal in 2020 to help our graduates to a job/income, preferably by founding 1 or more (small) businesses in which they can become partners or workers.
• We want to help our graduates to become self-employed, which we consider with our actual knowledge of Haitian society the only way for them to create a perspective to a more or less regular income and economic independency. We want to concentrate this in 1 or more (small) businesses, for which the initiative has to come from themselves with our support. We can help them to find sponsors, loans and (micro-) credits for their project. The plan should be

1.      realistic (taking into account Haitian possibilities and limitations),
2.       it should be based on some kind of a marketing research to convince sponsors of its future  creditworthiness,
3.       it should preferably use skills they acquired during their training and
4.       it should lead to some sort of regular income.

In order to realize this, we collaborate closely with our ex-student and former trainee business administration. He has started up a banana plantation (see our yearly report 2023), which was looking very promising and in conformity with our set goals (1-4 above). Regretfully this time it is climate change and EL Niño, causing exceptional draught in the first months of 2024, as observed for example by the World Food Program: “Rainfall conditions during the dry season (December to March) were relatively close to average, but have worsened in March with most of the country showing rainfall deficits, at a time when land preparation and planting for the main growing season are starting. Forecast data tend to predict wetter-than-average conditions in the three coming months.'[1]. This situation caused an immense setback. If the expected rainfall to come can help to solve this, we cannot predict at this moment. Even the well has dried up recently so that about 75% of the plants have died and the part that is still there, took much longer to bear fruits

 

 April 2024: plants to small to bear fruit

3/4 of the plants died due to draught

      

 

For this reason, the expected harvest for 2024 had to be postponed over half a year and we hope that given some time and enough rain the remaining plants will sprout thus create new plants. At least the first fruits are appearing in the remaining plants by August 2024.

 

August 2024: first fruits appear

 
 

Still, in due time we hope to be able to hand over a healthy plantation to the business administrator of our project.

 

• The first startup, the cybercafé, took off in 2020 and functions as our pilot in order to learn how to start a small business in Haiti. From this activity we have learned that starting up a business in Haiti, for people without experience in that area, is not possible without very close guidance, which we cannot provide for from a distance. For that reason, we will not prolong in that direction. We will only try to help the cybercafé surviving the logistical problems caused by the anarchy in Port au Prince, and secondly, we will try to guide the banana plantation to the next year, hoping for a rewarding harvest, that will enable it to become independent from our project.   
• In order to make this aforementioned transition we must adjust the goals of our foundation. The intention was to realize that in 2023, but as all our activities have been delayed, this one has suffered the same fate. We will work on it again in 2024. 

 

Objectives 2024

•      Objective in 2024 is to continue with the remaining student from Kay-Kok, Ile à Vache to support her with her graduation. We hope graduation will take place this year. Finances for this are available.
• By this the educational part of our program will come to an end in 2024. Since helping young people of Ile à Vache to establish a basis of regular income has been the underlying intention from the start of our program, instead of financing more young people to obtain a diploma with no perspective on work, we start now to help set up a small business, that will enable (some of) them to earn an independent income in the future.
• As to the housing and food: we cover the expenses of our remaining student as long as she needs to finish her studies.
• From the inventory between our (16) graduates in 2021 it appeared that the majority has not found a regular/fixed income. Some have migrated to Chili and the Dominican Republic, but that has not basically made a difference in their economic situation. 6 Of these students have informed us (on our request) that they are interested to set up a small enterprise of their own. After more investigation into their plans, it turned out that these plans are not solid enough to bear fruit to provide them with a regular income. When they are willing, they can try to apply for work in our banana-plantation (see next point), once this project is generating income.
• To develop in close cooperation with our former trainee, Ubain Pierre, the business plan he has written already to set up and possibly maintain a banana/plantain[1] plantation, that has got the potential to expand in due time and to offer work and income to several of our graduates or other inhabitants of Île a Vache. Ubain Pierre is the business administrator of this business, and as such he is supposed to train those people that will become employees in the business and to be the local leader of this part of the project. As soon as possible he is supposed to earn his living from the enterprise.
• Once the abovementioned startup is up and running, we (in close cooperation with Ubain Pierre) will explore the possibilities to set up other startups, or to diversify the plantation, preferably aimed to offer work to some of our young female graduates. The intention is, that these initiatives will be financed with the money generated by the plantation. The plantation in that sense has to become the engine that sets off more activities.    
• Work out a new way of cooperation with our local collaborator in the (closing) educational part, Bithovens St Firmin, who is also part of our first startup, the cybercafé. Since the educational branch of our project will stop as of 2024, his tasks in that activity will also come to an end. For the cybercafé we tried to provide equipment and materials for at least 1 more year of working. Regretfully this has so far not reached Haiti, but we still hope that this will succeed soon. In the end we aim that the cybercafé can keep up itself entirely and offer Bithovens St Firmin and his family a more regular income.
•  In the second place we have to establish a form of cooperation with our local business administrator Ubain Pierre, as our local collaborator in the plantain plantation, when he is able to take over the project management. 

Finance

For the year 2024, we have available + € 3000,-- from donations. The biggest part of this money is meant to be invested in the second startup. Since it is not entirely clear so far how much delay our student will still encounter this year, we cannot precisely foretell how many months she will need before graduation. The main costs will be her graduation (estimated to be $ 500).

In 2022 we postponed our call for contributions, because we first wanted to be able to present more concrete plans to our sponsors. Nevertheless, we were glad that we still received several donations and we will hope in 2024 some our regular sponsors to continue their donations. We aim to collect an amount of US$ 3500,-- all together, meaning that we have to find $ 500,-- on top of our already available donations.

Remuneration policy continued

The Board nor any other person in any way involved in the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok receives remuneration or compensation for their work from the funds of the foundation. Our onsite collaborators or representatives receive for their work nor a reward or compensation of the Foundation (see also under "our local collaborator” in the Annual Report). Our collaborator Bithovens St firmin gets $ 22,-- per month to cover the costs of data credit in order to keep up regular communication with the school, the student and us.

 

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[1] ‘Bakbananen’

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[1] Haiti: WFP VAM Bulletin - Food Security Analysis, April 2024, https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-wfp-vam-bulletin-food-security-analysis-april-2024.